The Clairvoyants

November 28, 2016
In Brown’s gripping second novel (after 2013’s The Longings of Wayward Girls), narrator Martha can see the dead, though she doesn’t feel obligated to help them. But she’s intrigued when she begins to see the ghost of Mary Rae Swindal, a girl reported missing in Martha’s upstate New York college town. Mary Rae’s ghost leads Martha to a house where she meets William Bell, a fellow photographer. Martha and William have a whirlwind courtship that ends in their marrying on the day of Mary Rae’s funeral. Martha’s unstable sister, Del, with whom Martha shares a dark childhood secret, follows Martha to Ithaca after spending three years in a psychiatric institution. Through William, the sisters end up spending time with his mentor, Anne, and a mourning group of girls from Mary Rae’s nearby hometown, Milton. William’s behavior becomes increasingly worrisome as Martha starts to see visions of him in the place where Mary Rae died; Martha and Del begin to wonder if he might be dangerous. Martha’s faith in Del is also challenged, though another traumatic event forces them to rely on each other. Brown’s novel is a riveting page-turner. She deftly reveals bits of Martha’s and Del’s past in tandem with more details about the mystery that Martha is trying to unravel, leaving the reader wondering if Martha might be an unreliable narrator. Though the ending isn’t entirely satisfying, Brown shows an admirable ability to create suspense.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
A young woman who sees ghosts leaves home only to lose herself to love.Martha has agreed to attend college partly to relieve her mother of the burden of worrying about her, but she finds excitement in the independence as well. All too soon, however, she must deal with two unexpected visitors: the ghost of a young woman who has recently gone missing and her all-too-alive younger sister, Del. Del, the golden child, the unstable one, the one who had been institutionalized at 16 in response to her abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sex, presents a foil to Martha, who is still a virgin at 20. Still, it's Martha who is drawn almost immediately to William, a professor at the college and erstwhile lover of the ghost girl, Mary Rae. Martha finds power in the passion that flares between them, but she also becomes part of a strange social group composed of her landlord, a dying artist/professor, and a group of girls who grew up with Mary Rae and all may or may not have posed for William's photographic study of women sleeping in the nude. During the parties they attend in the atmospheric Connecticut fall and winter, Martha must try to figure out why Del has come to join her as well as whether she can trust William. And in the background, there's always the ghost. Brown weaves a complex narrative with a lyrical thread of memories; Martha grew up near a camp of spiritualists, so the supernatural has always seemed part of her world. The mystery of a local boy found dead the summer that Martha was 15 is another undercurrent of Brown's (The Longings of Wayward Girls, 2013, etc.) arresting, unsettling, and beautiful tale. Brown enchants and haunts by making the reader question every voice, every truth.

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September 15, 2016

Mary Martha has been able to see spirits since she was young, but she has never used her gift to help others and usually ignores her special abilities. When she escapes her monotonous life on the seaside family homestead for an inland college town, she notices a flyer seeking information about a missing young woman, whose apparition then appears to her. Becoming increasingly obsessed with this specter, Mary begins a romance with Billy, who seems to have a suspicious history with the vanished girl. The arrival of sister Del, who manages to assimilate herself into Mary's group and life, makes this story all the more convoluted. While the author's premise--two very different siblings, an absent father, a promiscuous mother, teen years blemished by a murder, and a missing woman--holds promise, Brown has failed to flesh out her characters enough for readers to really care about any of them. The abrupt denouement will leave readers wanting more. VERDICT Brown's second novel (after The Longings of Wayward Girls) is a creepy gothic tale that in the end disappoints. Still, fans of her first book and award-winning short story collections (Little Sinners and Other Stories; Pins and Needles) may be curious. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/16.]--Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2016
The day Martha Mary first saw her aunt, her aunt had been dead for over a decade. Soon, more ghosts began to appear, at random, with silent pleading stares and unspoken needs, and Martha Mary grew to endure her talent (or curse). Despite learning from her grandfather's journals that he possessed the same ability, Martha Mary decided it was best to pretend that the ghosts didn't exist at all. When Martha Mary leaves home for college, she hopes to leave behind both the curse and her sister, Del, from whom she was inseparable until their parents placed her into a mental institution, two years before. But when she arrives at college, Martha Mary is dismayed to find missing-person signs for a young woman, Mary Rae. Months after Mary Rae's disappearance, whether she is dead or alive remains a mysterythat is, to everyone except Martha Mary. She is drawn into the missing girl's inner circle of friends and soon learns that she isn't the only one with dark secrets to uncover. A master of intrigue, Brown (The Longings of Wayward Girls, 2013) has crafted a haunting mystery that will relentlessly push readers until the very end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)